Bienvenu a Pantin, Maitre Javert!
by Argentine Rose
Summary: When Javert moved to Paris he was hoping for mystery and intrigue, and, what with a dememted burglar, the hyperactive head of the Surete, the increasingly erratic behaviour of the girl upstairs and a couple of unwelcome faces from the past, he gets it!
1. The Cold Coming

_A cold coming they had of it, at that time of the year.  
Just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long one, in"  
(Bishop Lancelot Andrews, Sermon)_

The diligence bumped on into the rue Contrescarpe – Dauphine, the act of making the turn causing it to give a particularly violent jolt. Bonnets and tall hats were thrust unceremoniously into the roof, the baby in the corner woke up and began to bawl in indignation, and Inspector Louis Javert tasted blood in his mouth where he had bit down on the inside of his lip.

On of his travelling companions, a short, mercantile looking man, began to complain loudly in patois and curse the driver and the postillon. The woman next to him on the banquette nodded her agreement vigorously and Javert puffed out his cheeks and lowered his chin in expression that could have been meant to convey either agreement or resignation. Satisfied that his peers were of an accord with him, the provincial merchant went on to declare that he had though the postillon to be_ "a proper larrikin from the moment I clapped my eyes upon him "_. Javert looked away, puffing out his cheeks again and running his fingers through his whiskers as he reflected that the little merchant could probably bore for Artois and would probably make most of his sales to people eager to shut him up.

Fifteen hours he had been with these seven other occupants of the couch's interior. Fifteen hours of unsprung, badly upholstered seats, of rain as weak yet persistent as a whining child. Fifteen hours of inconsequential chitchat to which he had made scant contribution, daydreaming in his corner seat, but had overheard anyway. Picking up other peoples' conversation came as naturally to him, after twenty years as an agent, as breathing, and was as much a matter of instinct. In truth, he had been listening to them even before they boarded the coach, as they made their farewells at Arras. People always said the same things on these occasions: _Safe journey, come home soon, careful not to take cold now, I love you._

Of course, no-one had seen Javert himself off. He had made his own farewells, such as they were, in Montreuil. It would have been a lie for him to say then that he was sorry to see the back of the place, and it would have been equally a lie for most the good people of Montreuil to say they were sorry to see the back of him. So Pontellier and Jacquemin had seen him off, the three of them all as inexpressive as ever, and then he had gone on to Arras alone, and that was that.

Finally the diligence came to a stop in the yard of the Paris office of the Duclere coaching company. The yard was full of great yellow public carriages, piles of luggage, harried travellers, postillons picking their way through puddles so as not to spot their breeches, swearing stable boys bringing out fresh horses and leading away the spent ones to their stalls, the wretched creatures with their sides rank with sweat, ears drooping and their tales either cropped off or bound up in knobbly buns began to carelessly tumble out towards the end of the day like a tart's chignon.

It was into this choreographed chaos that the eight passengers from the _interieur_ (not to mention the three from the _coupé _and six unfortunate standing passengers from the _impériale_) stepped down into, stunned and stupid from constant motion and fatigue and cold. They stamped up and down whilst waiting for their baggage to be unloaded in an attempt to restore their circulation, blowing on their fingers and rubbing their palms together. Javert was much as cold as the rest of them, despite having taken precautions against the weather. Recently, in the line of business, he had made this journey wearing only the ordinary layers of his uniform and a coach coat, and had sworn never to make that mistake again.  
This time he had layered – two shirts, every waistcoat he owned, as many pairs of stockings as he could wear and still get his boots on, kerchief under hat, two coats under his carrick and cloak. He had stopped short of wearing two pairs of breeches. Just. This had produced in the additional benefit of shortening the tedious work of packing up his effects – a process he loathed and one of the few areas where his self-discipline nearly failed him. He had, over the past week, put it off as much as possible, skulking out on matters of urgency, hoping that M LeClerc would send up Emma to fold things properly in his absence. Wearing almost everything had saved him an extra box.

The trunks and bags had been heaved out of the _impériale _and their reclamation was being presided over by the postillon, cocksure and resplendent in his powdered wig and boots. "_waiting, without a doubt, for his pour-boire, the rascal_" thought Javert, shouldering one of his bags and fishing in his carrick pocket for his purse.

"Where", he said, pressing a coin into the man's palm, "might I find a fiacre?"

The powdered wig and boots did not even need to look at the coin in his palm to judge the weight and worth of it: "This way, Monsieur" he said, even deigning to take a couple of Javert's lighter parcels with him as he walked off.

Clustering around the entrance to the Duclere yard was a sad group of fiacres, drivers asleep on their boxes or scowling at the lamplighters and street urchins through the drizzle. Wig and Boots made a lordly gesture to one of these, put the boxes down in the mud next to one of the hackney's huge back wheels and sauntered off into the rest of his evening in search of sleep or sex or eau de vie, or whatever it is that postillons spend their pour-boires on. The driver, who looked like a peasant rather than a Parisian, was considerate enough to jump down and help Javert with his trunks. Javert retrieved a piece of paper upon which the address of his new lodgings – 7, rue Millepierres – was written in faded pencil, and read the address to the man

Settled in the coach, he let his mind wander. Although he was never a philosophical man at the best of times, his thoughts at that moment were almost disappointingly earthy and mundane. They centred chiefly on oysters. Oysters in a stew, thick and rich and over salted, a good matelote and black bread. Javert must have been very hungry indeed to let his mind dwell on a matter so far beyond the bounds of discipline and of such trifling importance as chowder, and there was doubtless an element of self torture in his musings since the likelihood of his being able to find anything like the fabled and imagined stew was slender. The likelihood of his finding anything much at all was, at this late hour, as slim as a beggar's dog. The rain seemed to have matured also, now coming down with the violent energy of an adolescent. He peered out of the window of the fiacre into this rain and the dark, but found himself thinking again about matelote with oysters and felt a tremor in his stomach. He leant back against the seat, inhaled deeply and pressed his handkerchief to his lips. Finding this in no wise helpful, he folded it back up and replaced it in the pocket of his frock coat.

And then they pulled up short outside of a corner house on a street just wide enough to admit the fiacre, and he realised they had arrived

"Rue Millepierres, Monsieur!" called out the cabbie and Javert stepped out of the carriage and began unloading his bags. The driver helped him to shift them onto the step of the corner house, accepted his payment with a nod, remounted his box and the hackney clattered off into the dark. There was a tattered piece of cord serving as a bell pull hanging down on the left hand side of the door, and this Javert pulled. Finding himself, five minutes later, faced with wet whiskers and a shut door, he gave the cord another hearty tug. The door remained shut and the house dead (although Javert noted a candle in the upstairs window. He rang again. Finally the door was opened a crack and Javert saw a candle. The candle was followed by a face, pallid, freckled and insolent

"Bonsoir," said Javert in a tone at once ironical, unimpressed and peremptory, folding his arms across his chest

"Prevert?" said the boy, opening the door properly and walking off back down the corridor in his stockinged feet, "This way."

Javert remained where he was, standing in the midst of his baggage. The youth, noticing that he wasn't being followed, turned back and drawled, " Well, come in why don't you?"

Javert looked down at his luggage then at the boy with a painful expression.

"Oh, that! Just come back for it. Not like anyone's going to _crib_ it"

Javert thought about having it out with the cheeky whelp then and there on the doorstep, decided against it and slipped inside with as much of his baggage as he could manage at one time.

"Two flights up" said the boy, wandering off into the dark interior of the house and leaving, in an inexplicably thoughtful gesture, the candle behind him: "Blow that out and shut the door when you're don't will you?"

"_Freluquet!"_ Javert hissed as he clunked up the stairs, glancing over his should with a look that would have made anyone who knew him in a professional capacity think about beating a hasty retreat. At the top of the second flight of steps he found his key hung about the door handle by another mouldy length of string. He opened the door, pushed his luggage into what he assumed, in the darkness, to be the centre of the room, and returned downstairs for the rest. On his last trip he contrived somehow to have a free hand with which to carry the candle and so, returning upstairs, he was able to see something that had been placed just to the side of his door and which may or may not have been their before. He stooped down and found half a loaf of cheap black 'Prison' bread and a small, wizened apple that had certainly seen better days.

Javert was not greatly disposed to investigate this miracle, although the part of his brain that remained permanently on duty noted that this was unlikely to be a gesture of repentance from the freckled boy.

Tearing into the bread with more enthusiasm than grace, he shifted the last of his boxes into his new lodgings, found his way into the bedroom, lay down upon the unmade bed and was asleep in minutes, secure in the knowledge that years of discipline meant that he could trust himself to wake to later than six.


	2. Passing of the first Sunday in March

_"It is always wise to begin with a mystery"  
Susan Griffin_

Javert awoke the following morning and, while it could hardly be called light, it would get no lighter. He lay there on the unmade bed for a moment, covered by his carrick, and listened to the church bells tell the hour: _One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six_. "All well," he thought, throwing back the coat and sitting up: _Seven, Eight_ "Dammit"

Still, it was a Sunday and his first holiday since . . . it might as well have been his first holiday for all he knew what to do with it. Should he go to Mass? It was Sunday after all. A brief memory passed through his mind as faintly and unpleasantly as the sudden taste of yesterday's dinner at the back of the throat. This fleeting vision was of the monumentally dull and seemingly interminable services given at the chapel of the Orphan's hospital in Montreuil. No, he would not go to Mass. But what to do?

He stood up, padded to the window – despite being a big man this he did as silently as a cat – and opened the shutters. He leant out the window with his elbows resting on the sill, looking down into the street. At length he remarked: "Tiens, ma belle, it is time for us to get reacquainted."

With that he left the window and began to get undressed, removing the excess stockings, the multiple waistcoats and the surplus shirt of the day before. He then arrayed himself 'en dishabille' as he did when he wished to become anonymous. It was not an easy thing for Javert to pass unnoticed, but many of his acquaintances would have walked past him 'en dishabille' in simple disbelief that this picture of semi-genteel squalor could have anything to do with the usually irreproachably neat inspector.

His ensemble was thus: a shirt of the coarsest muslin, so frayed that it would have taken the most skilled seamstress to make anything of it; a wretched waistcoat and breeches that competed to be worse; coarse boots many times resoled; a green kerchief knotted about his throat in place of a cravat, and a cap the horrors of which shall not be entered into here for want of space.Its crowning glory was a coat that might once have been brown, and might once have been fashionable, and within living memory too, but which was certainly neither of those things now.

Normally Javert would have tied his hair back from his face but that morning he let it fall forwards about his face in a grey curtain stopping just short of his shoulders. He looked wholly unlike himself and cut a vaguely pitiable figure in which something of the rogue, the poet and the poor rentier ruined by an unwise financial speculation were mingled. And yet he strode out the door with the cheerful confidence of a young man of fashion going to meet his mistress.

The one item that he did retain of his everyday attire was his heavy cane, which he tucked under his arm in a deliberate, energetic movement as he shut the door.

Turning around to face the landing, he met with a woman coming up the stairs with a pile of shirts in her arms. In dress and figure she was unremarkable, drab even, in her cap and plain seamstress's gown, and yet she had a face that was striking in that it seemed to belong to another age entirely, having that sharp, pale, slightly disturbing quality found in portraits of the Sixteenth Century. At first glance Javert thought her rather ugly.

She fixed him with a look that was not exactly insolent, but certainly bold, and yet also timid, putting him in mind of a feral animal.

"Good morning," he said, because he could be polite when he chose.

"Good morning, Monsieur"

" – l'inspecteur," Javert added, thinking that there had been a question in her voice, and she made a little "hah" sound through her nose that could have signified anything from comprehension to fear to surprise that he was telling her, of all people. Then, making a little gesture that caused the bundle of shirts to slip dangerously in her arms, she said simply, "Viau" and, shrugging the shirts back up into a comfortable position, walked off.

The odd flavour of the meeting almost matched that of the night before's encounter with the freckled youth and Javert began to wonder if everyone in the house was a little peculiar. Shrugging, he crossed his arms, continued downstairs and stepped out into the street. It was a fresh sort of morning and he wondered where he should go. The thought of paying a visit to the cottage at Saint-Dennis passed momentarily through his mind but he dismissed it. He reflected that it would be sensible to familiarise himself with the area so that he could start on Monday knowing what he was about. But, he decided, he would cross over the river and take a walk on the Right Bank first.

Javert was a man usually deeply suspicious of his own pleasures, and was rather conscious not to indulge them, but even he could find no harm in that most Parisian of diversions, the stroll. We have said before that he left his apartment that morning like a young man going to meet his lover, and we might add that to walk along the Quai aux Fleures or in the Jardin des Plantes (something which always put a vague smile on his broad face) was perhaps the closest approximation in Javert's life to that sensation.

And so this is what he did: made his way to the river and stood on the Pont Neuf watching the urchins beg for food to see if the vendors of pommes frites had grown more generous since his day (they had not); next he turned towards the "Boulevard du Crime", glancing with an appraising eye at the gaudy theatre posters and the tops of the old trees waving in the mounting wind; then to the building site that as the Madeleine and the Louvre, full of treasures but also of things that no-one was quite sure what to do with, and separated from the Tuileries – where Buonaparte had once lived – by a ghetto of tall and ugly houses, all with a more or less dilapidated and slatternly aspect. Javert felt, for some reason, that he should go into the museum of the Louvre itself and try and absorb some culture. This was the same unaccountable prompting that made him sit up reading everything from De Maistre to De Stael in his spare moments, even when he gained no particular pleasure from it. However, it was already after lunchtime and he wished to explore his won patch before he lost the light. Breathing a sigh of relief, he headed back towards his own quartier.

As the reader will doubtless have established, Javert's new lodgings were on the Left bank, rue Millepierres being equidistant between the Pantheon and the rue Mouffetard. It was a narrow street – we have mentioned that it was only just wide enough to admit the entry of a fiacre – set in a tangle of narrow streets laid out much as if a housewife had thrown a plate of vermicelli or a skein of wool haphazardly onto the floor in a fit of temper. At the end of the quartier nearest to the river there were things that could perhaps be considered splendid, but as one came away from the Seine and towards the horrid false countryside surrounding Paris it became more and more dilapidated. By and large it was a deprived district, the atmosphere was one of surly indifference, shot through and coloured, like a particularly ugly opal, with seams of feverish, consumptive gaiety and vicious and ardent revolt. As a habitat for crime and, consequently, as a hunting ground for Javert, it was rich and sure to provide not only bread and butter but meat, milk, coffee and chocolate: its criminal population ranged from the vaguely pitiable individuals who skimmed clothes off washing lines to serious gang members, as well as a large population of grisettes and students, two groups very easily led astray, the first by poverty and the second political convictions and the innate rowdiness of the young.

All this Javert noted along with the layout of the little winding streets, committing it all to memory along with the faces of the people he meet. But he began to feel a tingling on his back andgrew troubled. He had an obscure, instinctive feeling that he was being followed and yet could make nothing of it. Certainly he had seen that young man standing on the corner of the street – suspiciously and obnoxiously handsome with his blond curls – too many times for coincidence, and the old crone who had just gone into the bakers also felt familiar. Annoyingly, there was nothing more tangible than that and, unwilling to turn hunter on so slight a scent, he turned back to the rue Millepierres.

It was just growing dusky but the corner house looked to him unduly dark, even from the outside. It must once have been a rather nice building, but now it was unkempt, tall, thin and looking as if it were due a bad case of subsidence some point none too distant. His main criteria in taking the lodgings had been to find somewhere in the correct section the he might occupy within the week. He had paid no attention to any considerations but these, and it only occurred to him as he was opening the door that he could have afforded something better. But then, why would he have wanted to? He was not a man to feel confident living amongst bourgeois neighbours, and a lodging of that kind could have taught him nothing about the district. Anyway, he never spent as much as he could afford on anything, not because he was mean but simply out of long force of habit.

He stepped inside and shut the door, finding the hall to be almost pitch black. A voice called out from somewhere in the mysterious regions of the first floor: "Is that you now, Sophie? You've been a good deal of time!"

"No, Madame," replied Javert, "It's your new tenant. Excuse me."

"Ah, Monsieur Prevert! Do come in to see me – first door on your left."

Javert did as he was bid, stepping into the shabby parlour, which was occupied by three women seated around a table and three men, lounging in various attitudes of boredom on the outskirts of the room. All these shall be introduced in their turn.

"Javert," he said simply, wishing to correct the Madame without giving undue offence. All in the room turned to consider him with a mild curiosity and he felt conscious that the clothes that had allowed him to pass unnoticed in the street might have the opposite effect here.

"I didn't know we'd taken to renting to beggars, ma," drawled a voice from the corner, which Javert recognised as belonging to the freckled youth of the night before, now leaning nonchalantly against the windowsill, and clad in a sort of shabby and pretentious Sunday best.

Javert bristled visibly at the insult and must have looked rather dangerous since the eldest of the women, a stout matron making up for in nose what she lacked in chin, raised her hand and said: "Hush, Émile! Is that any way to address an Officer of the Peace? My son, Monsieur Prevert – very high-spirited boy! – Please to forgive! – Highly intelligent! Hem, one hopes your journey was not too tiring. You're lucky to have caught us all together – " and she closed a small book and placed it on her lap, causing Javert to realise that it was the first Sunday of the month and what he had initially taken for a gathering of pleasure must, in fact, be a settling of accounts.

"You'll let me introduce you to everybody?" the woman continued, "Do sit down! You'll have some tea? Nana, pour Monsieur Prevert some tea!"

The young woman he had encountered that morning rose from her seat at the other end of the table with an expression that was as far from sullenness as it is possible to be without exhibiting any other classifiable emotion.

"It's quite alright – " Javert said, stepping forward. The matron misinterpreted his gesture as meaning he would fix his own and laughed.

"No, no, Monsieur Prevert! I insist! Nana can do it!"

"You mistake me, Madame," said Javert with the cold gravity that he was accustomed to adopt with those he was uncomfortable with, especially women, "I do not want any tea."

The good landlady laughed again but fixed the little seamstress with an irritated look. The girl herself looked at Javert and contracted her thin eyebrows and Javert became conscious that she was far from as ugly as he had first thought, but much more peculiar.

"Well Monsieur Prevert, let me see . . . I am – "

"Madame Genevieve Moulin," said Javert tersely, asserting his authority over the gathering.

"Yes! Quite!" said the good woman, laughing again and plainly disconcerted: "Monsieur Claude-Michel Fameuil" gesturing to a thin, blonde fellow leaning against the mantle who had paint on his frock coat, "And his wife, Madame Joséphine Fameuil."

Here she gestured to the third woman at the table, sat next to the seamstress, with whom she could not have presented more of a contrast. Both women were of a height, pale and slightly thin, but La Fameuil's pallor was emphasized by dark hair hanging in limp ringlets and dark liquid eyes with blue circles under them. Everything about her was drooping and lymphatic and put Javert in mind of a piece of salt cod – grey and uninspiring.

"This, continued Mme Moulin as she indicated an unkempt youth of about twenty with a suspiciously red waistcoat, who was playing at patience at a small card table near the fire, "Is Monsieur Bahorel, a medical student, and that – " she said with a gesture to the seamstress, "is Nana Viau"

"Did I hear you say you were an officer of the peace?" enquired the young M Bahorel.

"No – " began Javert

"Because I'll tell you something, " continued the student in an rather aggressive accent that was more southern than even Javert's, who could at least become Parisian when he chose, "Now, I've learnt a few things about the Law, I have friends – "

Mme Fameuil and Mlle Viau looked at each other and Mme Fameuil raised an eyebrow as far as she could while still remaining wholly languid.

" – now, what I firmly believe about justice is this – "

"Do you ever stop saying boring things, old boy?" drawled Émile.

"It's that rascal of a first minister if you ask me!" exclaimed M Fameuil

Javert heaved a deep sigh, as if regretful of having to leave such a fascinating discussion, bowing stiffly to the company and excused himself on account of having matters of administration to attend to.


	3. Javert's Narrative

A/N Death boring chapter in which nothing happens, and packed with OCs to boot. I apologise but had to get it in somehow  
Could someone tell me if Debelleyme was prefect in 23 - all my reference books are in Bristol so I can't check and may well be imagineing things  
Oh, and someone wanted a French glossary - here we go:  
**Chapter 1** - diligence - stage coach, intérieur, coupé and impériale - different classes of travel on these coaches, poire-boire - tip, fiacre - hackney carriage, cab, matelote - fish stew, Bonsoir - good evening, freluquet - insolent pup  
**Chapter 2** - tiens, ma belle - well, my pretty, rentier - one who lives of income from the stock exchange or other assets,  
Chapter 3 - fac - a quebecois word used to change the subject or make another such interjection in a conversation. I'm using it (wrongly) as a northernism. Mec - bloke, in this context rather like saying "The Man!", Meg - old slang for God, tapis-franc - sleazy bar, eau d'aff - brandy. As for what Nana says, you're not getting a translation, so there!  
**The second revision. Think I might be ill ;-)**

* * *

_On the first of March, 1823, Louis Javert began his duties as an inspector of police stationed at rue Pontoise, Paris, and so the author now turns to the words of the man himself to recount the day – for who better to do so?_

_Astute readers may wonder as to the provenance of this narrative and I feel it is my authorial duty to explain how it was constructed.. The Author has created itfrom accounts of the incident in his possession - letters, private notebooks and the like – as well as from verbal accounts from those concerned. Where there are lacunae in these sources of information I have taken the liberty of using my own imaginative faculties to bridge them_

_V.H. 1846_

_

* * *

_

12ieme Mars 1823

. . . As for my own duties, well, I have high hopes that they shall at last prove to be . . . interesting (certainly more interesting than M-sur-M before a _certain recent occurrence_)

At 8:00am on the morning of the 6th I presented myself to my new commissaire, a M Claude Simonet, for the first time. He was a little, jolly sort of man – very Ancien Régime – with powder in his hair (not that he needed it since what little there was quite grey).

I stepped into the room and bowed deeply, offering him my papers. He responded in the most informal manner, as if I were an old friend he had not seen in years: "Now, you must be the famous Monsieur Javert! Delighted to meet you. Delighted!"

I did not really know what to make of this attitude, being little accustomen to the more social forms of greeting, and must have appeared very stiff. I was even more discomfited when I heard a knock at the door – I had expected that this initial interview would be conducted alone.

"Come in, come in," M Simonet called with the air of an affable priest or schoolmaster. I noted that he had a habit of saying everything twice.

The visitor was a man of my own age, who made me think of what Renée la Bossé used to say about why one should never trust short men – brains too near their bottoms (first damn thing she ever said to me when I came to M-sur-M, now I think about it).who did not take my hand when I offered it, simply glared at me. I glared at him, too. I knew him, I was sure of that, and in no pleasant connection. _But it couldn't be, surely? Surely the Good Lord does not hate me that much . . ._

"Inspector Leopold Daguerre, of the first class" said M Simonet and the only thing I could register, in my shock, was the ridiculous fact that That Man - Daguerre -was now my superior.

"And this is our new chap, Monsieur Javert! You've heard about him no doubt, Daguerre? Exposed the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer as a recidivist housebreaker, no less!"

There was something about this impish old man with his powder – was he mocking me?

Daguerre remained impassive, sniffed and remarked (rather loftily) that he "did not concern himself with provincial cases." _Maybe he has a point. Perhaps it is rather ridiculous of me to be so very vain of having exposed Madeleine?_

"Ah, Monsieur Javert, you will have to excuse our Monsieur Daguerre – a very talented man. _Again I find myself thinking of little Renée la Bossépulling insolent faces to her girls. I straighten my shoulders, stand up very straight and try not to laugh_

" . . . of course, nominally you'll be working under him – as a sort of apprenticeship – but he's a very busy man, so you'll have a very heavy workload of your own – and a degree of autonomy, up to a point, with men under you. Understood?"

"Yes Monsieur" _To work under Daguerre? Oh my stars! But I will not argue . . ._

The commissaire gave Daguerre a sly look. Daguerre gave him a nod which I suppose was meant to be imperceptible, and then turned to me: "I'll give you fifteen minutes, Javert, and then I'll join you. Can't have the man who arrested the mayor of Montreuil idling the day away now, can we?"

"But of course not," I replied, pretending I'd missed the sarcasm. _Of all days, I will not be provoked today. Not by Leopold Daguerre of all people._

"Come, come! I'll show you to you're office myself!" beamed Simonet and almost ricocheted from desk to door. He's very spry, despite his grey hair. But then, as I have been fighting a loosing campaign against grey from my thirtieth year, I suppose it doesn't mean much.

I have an office, no more working in the corner of a stuffy fuggy room, having to wipe coal smuts of every damn thing with people coming and going and making a ruckus. Admittedly, when I die I will probably get a coffin only a very little smaller than the room allocated to me at Pontoise, but it is a start, it is private and it is mine.

Two men had seated themselves in the odd little corners between bits of furniture – I noticed that they had left them most imposing chair, the one behind the desk, and the older of the two men looked at me as if I was expected to take it. But Monsieur Simonet was still in the room, and I did not wish to sit in the presence of my superior officer. Instead I rolled down the collar of my coat, crossed my arms and fell to studying the two men before me, whom I presumed to be the ones described by Simonet as especially mine. The first was a captain, a short, stocky man with a pockmarked face, some ten years older than myself and of a soldierly aspect. The second was a sergeant and – you can imagine my surprise at this – the very same young man that I have mentioned as having followed me on the previous day. I said nothing but looked at him closely and could see that he recognized me also, although he seemed not so much abashed as confused. _I seem to attract coincidence - ah, what's the damn word? Like a compass? Magnetism! – with a sort of magnetism today. And they say that these things always come in threes._

"Gentlemen, your new superior, Inspector Javert" _I note that he did not give my Christian name: no-one ever does, as if from instinct._ "Captain Chrétien Minot and Sergeant Etienne Jolivet – he's new, like yourself. Monsieur Daguerre will be along soon, I should fancy. Minot, I can trust you to tell the inspector all that he needs to know. Good day!"

And so I was alone with my men and, oh rare occurrence! - rather found myself at a loss for words. Maybe it is my gypsy blood, but I am not usually caught at a loss for a phrase or two but . . . perhaps it was my eagerness to make an impression of some kind in the capital, perhaps that everyone I had met here so far seemed quite mad – I do not know . . . I tried to think about what I had said this time three years ago, upon my arrival in Montreuil. I could not remember a word. Ah yes! I had made some speech about it being my first post of command as an inspector and how I intended to make a success of it. All too obviously inappropriate here. _Now, if I weren't such a cocksure ass I'd have made some notes for this . _. .

"Officers, my name is Inspector Javert, of the second class –" but then they already knew that. "– but then you already know that. Fac – " _Fac? Fac! What dammed Artois provincialism is this?_ _Time for an entirely knew tactic, I feel, since the "Buonaparte addressing his troops" lark is not having at all the desired effect._ I turned sharply to face the young lad, Jolivet, looked at him very intently and remarked, "I know you." Then, before he had a chance to reply that it simply wasn't possible, I continued: "You were following me yesterday afternoon – around the Quartier Mouffetard."

"I wasn't following you, sir"

"I saw you quite distinctly outside the ironmonger's"

"Please, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, I was in the Quartier Mouffetard yesterday, and I was following someone, but I wasn't following you."

"I see"

"I noticed you though – that's why I might have looked surprised when you came in. I guessed you might be "in our line" but I thought that you might be . . . from Judée."

"I see"

The boy looked very embarrassed, and he had the sort of fine pale skin that shows it too. He bit his lower lip but then, being a candid sort, continued: "To be honest sir, at first . . . At first I thought you might be . . the Mec – "

"Meg, d'you mean? _You thought I was God?_ Well, I'm very flattered Sergeant Jolivet but – "

"No, Sir, the Mec – you know, Vidocq. I've not met him, you see – I've only been here a month – but I've heard about him and from a distance there's something about you. But then I got closer and realized it couldn't be – you're too tall for one thing. But I still thought you might be one of his"

I was almost offended at the thought that I might be mistaken for one of that bunch of brigands and scowled. But then I reflected that it would be churlish to be displeased with a boy who didn't know me from Vidocq or either of us from Adam – how was he to know it was a sensitive point? – and that it was a neat point of observation for someone who had only been in the force a month

"I see. And so, Sergeant Etienne Jolivet, who were you following?"

"An old woman – I'd noticed her about, coming and going, while I was on patrol. Seemed a bit odd."

"I noticed an old woman too – carry on"

"Well, I know this might sound mad, sir, but it looked like she was following you, sir"

"Well now, I can't account for that. And you, Captain – have you got anything to add to our discussion on peculiar old women?"

"Only my wife, Sir"

I glared at him.

"Very sorry, Sir"

"Yes, well, it serves as a timely reminder that we are here to do business. Let me make a few points plain about the way in which I wish to work and then we can get down to it. Firstly, the dignity of the Law is – "

But my two men never did get to find out what the dignity of the law was (it's paramount, by the way) for at that moment we were interrupted by Monsieur Daguerre.

He barged in without knocking, as is his right as my superior and he barked at me rather rudely that he hoped I was "Ready to see what a hard day's work in the capital looked like", as was his right as my superior officer. I told him that I was, narrowing my eyes and frowning, as is just within my rights as an inferior officer.

For the rest of the day I followed either Daguerre, or Captain Minot around on patrol work that was of the most routine and dull kind. I was told that I needed to be "made acquainted with my patch" – no-one seemed to consider that I might have taken the trouble to have done that before I began, or that I might have been here before. Although now I can honestly say that I am intimately acquainted with every leaky gutter and streetlamp, each costermonger, fish-hawker and rag-picker and any clumsy horse or bad driver to be found in the quartier Mouffetard!

Minot, at least was a pleasant and efficient guide and companion, seeming to not only know but be on friendly terms with everybody (Although this is not my style of policing, I see that it can have its benefits, particular in a junior officer) aand ever ready to volunteer information – along with considerable chunks of his life history. He had, as I guessed, been a soldier – served in the Russian campaign, no less – who had joined the police when Buonaparte got packed off to Elba. As I already knew, he had a wife and also children and grandchildren. I don't entirely approve of agents having families, but he was obviously very proud of them.

At about seven we came upon Daguerre, who was leaving a tapis-franc with a bottle of what looked like the cheapest sort of eau d'aff.

"Well," he said, "Well. Monsieur Minot, do you think we can trust Javert, apprehender of the famous mayor of Montreuil, out on his own tonight"

"I would have thought yes," answered Minot with a neutral, military face.

"Fine and good - he can take my beat for tonight"

I must have made some foolish little fish gasp in the back of my throat as he turn to me and snapped, "Well, I'm meant to be training you, aren't I? Besides, frees me up to work for Delavau, you'd be doing us all a favour. Take and hour to sort yourself out if you must, then get on with it. Start up round Panthéon –I showed you the route."

_How like Daguerre to mention the prefect! No-one changes!_

With that he disappeared back into the tapis-franc.

Well, I had no intention of taking that hour he'd offered me – although I'd not eaten since the morning. All I wanted was to get down to the job, finally alone and in a position to do something useful. Maybe I would try to rejoin Minot later – to whom I had taken a liking since he seemed so calm and professional, despite his awful jokes. But when I went to my watch pocket to check the hour, I'd only forgotten the wretched thing. I'd had no occasion to use it thus far but I knew I would have to go back home for it now.

I walked home and let myself in. In the hallway I found the student and young Moulin busying themselves to got out to some public ball

"Now, don't you give me any trouble later on, my young blades," I remarked to them

On the second floor I overheard the man with the painter, Monsieur Fameuil, and his stockfish of a wife having a quarrel. On the third floor I got out my key, let myself in, hastily retrieved my watch from my other waistcoat and locked up behind me. On the stairs going down I was passed by the Viau girl, rather flustered and swathed in a black domino _"Where the devil could she be off to?"_ I thought. I caught her eye and she looked down, as if embarrassed _"To the same place as the two young men, perhaps?"_

"You're out late, Monsieur" she said.

"As are you, Mademoiselle Viau. I keep late hours in my profession."

"Nana, please – everyone else does. Have you eaten, Monsieur? she said, not unkindly

"No," answered I, surprised at the question.

"You should," she went on, then stuck her hand out from inside the domino with a slice of coarse bread in it and said in an indifferent tone "Take this then. Not as if I want it"

"No. Thank you, mademoiselle," I aid, more harshly than perhaps I ought, I don't know why. There was not much of charity in the way she said it, after all – more as if I was a silly, wayward child.

"Fine, suit yourself. But _Kousket Zo hanter voued_"

Or, at least, that's what I think she said. That's the best I can render it on paper. I've no idea what it was supposed to mean.

"What was that?"

"Nothing"

"What was that you said?"

"I didn't say anything" she said in a surly, fearful voice

"Look, kid, it's not the sort of thing you can lie about. What did you say?" God but I was not in the mood to have some daft bint playing silly buggers with me at home – I get enough of that at work. Especially not this strange, insolent cat of a girl. She looked at me as if judging her next step, then, as if she understood me very well, looked away and said: "I just said that you could please yourself and . . . oh, does it matter? . . . that you should eat something"

"Well, next time hopefully all this fuss won't be necessary. Eh, Mademoiselle Viau?"

She looked like a kid that's been smacked by her mother for taking sweets, and said nothing.

"Now, I'll whistle you a cab if you like – "

She gave me a look that said most wonderfully "And how am I going to pay for that?" which would have earned her a fortune (or, at least her fare) at the Variétés.

I think I have already remarked to you that everyone I've met in Paris seems somehow odd. But there is a better illustration than even this to follow . . .


End file.
